


What You See

by kaihire



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Anorexia, Body Dysmorphic Disorder, F/M, M/M, Statutory Rape, Stiles is of Legal Age, mentions of dub-con/non-con within canon context (read: Kate)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-22
Updated: 2012-12-22
Packaged: 2017-11-22 00:05:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,101
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/603561
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kaihire/pseuds/kaihire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sterek Campaign prompt fill.</p><p>When Derek looks in the mirror, all he sees is the body Kate Argent used against him, a body he struggles to reshape, redefine, and punish into something he won't feel is weak. Letting Stiles go out with him is an added layer of protection, preventing anyone from looking too closely and seeing the damaged boy beneath the surface.</p><p>Except that Stiles sees right through him. And maybe, just maybe, that isn't the disaster he feared.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What You See

**Author's Note:**

  * For [abDraconis1381](https://archiveofourown.org/users/abDraconis1381/gifts).



> Written for Alex, who 'won me' in the Sterek Campaign's fanfiction auction. 
> 
> I went a little over the 1,000 word limit. I hope I didn't fumble the prompt or the delicate subject matter too badly--I was trying to work within the limit as much as possible. I hope the slightly loose, disjointed prose adds rather than detracts from the journey.
> 
> A big thank you to Alex for the wonderful prompt and for helping to support our four-legged friends. I hope this is close to what you wanted.
> 
> As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated.
> 
> My background music while writing this was [Stabbing Westward's "Why."](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wP79STpFHsU) Due warning, the song is a bit of a downer.

It started out with a drunken birthday dare, Scott thinking it’d be hilarious. It started with a 3am text that said: ‘You know, I’m 18 now, so you should ask me out.’ It started out with too much rum and not enough Coke, and Stiles laughing so hard that Scott had to fumble for the phone.

 

It started out expecting a ‘fuck off’ or ‘I know Scott put you up to this.’

 

It started out with 5:12am. It started out with: ‘Ok.’

 

 

And really, for the first couple weeks, despite the utter awkwardness, despite the lack of anything even approaching friendship, Stiles had to gloat. He had to gloat, because armcandy. Serious, epic armcandy, and he wasn’t going to admit—not to himself, not aloud—that looks had nothing to do with it. It was the snark and the growl, and the hint of something beneath the surface; it was Derek never shoving him around as hard as Scott or Erica or even Isaac did. It was leather and Henleys and the smell of his sweat in the Jeep. It was Derek having his back, and trusting Stiles to have his, or at least starting to notice that Stiles was actually dependable.

 

There wasn’t so much with the actual dating. There was an extremely weird diner excursion, wherein Stiles destroyed two cheeseburgers and a large order of curly fries while Derek disdainfully eyed him over the rim of his soda. There was one night out at the movies, the latest Hollywood horror, and Derek didn’t jerk his hand away when Stiles grabbed it at the chainsaw scene.

 

So there was _that_.

 

 

Derek worked out. A lot. Derek was 100% California, manufactured out of designer jeans and surgical-grade cheekbones, and he practically oozed ‘evolved jock’ when he wasn’t oozing ‘badder than a bad-boy.’ Then there was the whole werewolf thing, and how they all seemed to be sporting insane 6-packs, so it was easy to miss.

 

It took Stiles nearly a month to notice. A month of hanging around more at the Hale house, showing up uninvited, invading Derek’s private spaces in small, cumulative ways. One sided conversations, Stiles running his mouth so that Derek didn’t have to, and that was ok too.

 

So yeah, he saw him doing insane reps of push-ups, saw him doing pull-ups on the burned-out doorframes, watched him sprint through the woods like an extremely aesthetically-pleasing blur, all perfect symmetry and even more perfect focus.

 

He saw the training sessions, watched Derek put Boyd—three inches and at least 40 lbs more werewolf—through walls, watched him outpace Scott, watched him twist in mid-air faster than Erica could, watched him beat Isaac’s reflexes with ease. And he chalked it up to the ‘Alpha’ thing, to the ‘trying to impress Scott’ thing, to the ‘need to maintain dominance’ thing.

 

Then he started to notice the way Derek trained when nobody was around. The way he’d sit there while his pack of misfits tucked away an entire table’s worth of pizza. The way he’d mix up protein shakes and carb-blockers and things Stiles didn’t try to pronounce, all the bottles festooned with headless images of steroid-puffed body builders.

 

It started to come together. And the more it did, the less Stiles could enjoy the end result, the too-lean angle to Derek’s jaw, the sleek, solid build of him, the apparent single-digit body fat. He stopped enjoying, and he started reading, started studying, started talking to strangers on forums.

 

He stopped self-indulgently thinking ‘armcandy’ and started thinking ‘problem.’

 

Started being glad he’d never accidentally blurted out, “You’re so hot.”

 

Noticed how Derek never, ever glanced at his own reflection when they walked past a storefront, tinted windows on a car, when Stiles wore his uber-dorky vintage aviator sunglasses.

 

 

Mirrors were a thing.

 

Or rather, mirrors _weren’t_ a thing.

 

Having the hollow husk of a house for a home made a neat excuse. There was barely running water; of course there were no mirrors.

 

There were no other reflective surfaces, either. Windows that remained intact were covered in layers of soot inside, weathered dirt outside.

 

Mirrors were a thing, because mirrors meant seeing down his own body, barely starting to hit an initial growth spurt. They meant seeing her hands, large and tan against his boyish hips; meant feeling the way calluses dragged over his sides, calluses he was too stupid to realize were from holding a gun just right. Calluses that felt good, that knew precisely how much, where. And her smirk, looking up at him, that hinted at adult secrets he couldn’t even begin to grasp, that promised things he didn’t have words for. A smirk that didn’t waver as she undid his jeans and eased his entire world into flames.

 

Mirrors meant seeing her hard, toned thighs, bare and muscular and taboo and under his uncertain touch. Mirrors meant smelling smoke and tasting ash and remembering her over him, the fall of her hair brushing against his face, her strong hands pinning his wrists too tight, and thinking that this was how it was supposed to feel. Thinking that she was formidable; that she was older, bigger, wiser, beautiful.

 

And he saw that body every time, that body that had betrayed his family, that body which had been accessory to murder, and he showered fast and cold, didn’t touch more than necessary, didn’t dwell. Worked to build up a shell of muscle and tendon against the memories, studied charts and made makeshift weightlifting equipment, pushed his body until sometimes, if he really, _really_ tried, he didn’t see the fragile boy Kate Argent had fooled.

 

 

But Stiles saw him.

 

Stiles _saw_ him, and Derek thought he’d been stupid to even think it would work. That maybe this boy could see only the outside, and not see the reflection, when this boy, of all of them, was incapable of not getting at the truth.

 

Stiles’ eyes were _nothing but_ reflection, and his hands didn’t try to take Derek’s armor apart, didn’t try to yank at his shirt or grope at his skin, didn’t get into the crevices in his exoskeleton.

 

 

It was Sunday morning, early, first slivers of sunlight through heavy trees.

 

He’d just come back from a run, t-shirt sticking to his broad chest. Stiles didn’t touch; was astute enough not to, but he abruptly twined their fingers together, palms not meeting, ethereal, no give and no take.

 

Barely an inch shorter, so that when he softened his expression and said, "Please?" without expectation or intent, Derek didn’t even have to lean down to find his first kiss.


End file.
